Do you guys read books to escape your shitty lives?
Gamers often game cause they want to escape their existence. Being almost 30 and having no friends and being a virgin. Of course you want to invest your free time and money on games.
But what about readers? Do you read to escape reality?
Why is reading separate from reality? Why is gaming? I read to for intellectual growth and aesthetic pleasure. Is that not reality? You are spooked is all.
Consumer culture has taught you what 'reality' is and you believe it.
I read for numerous reasons like
>keeping the brain sharp
>adding to one's world/cultural knowledge; picking up books from other cultures can teach one some neat things
>fun/entertainment
>challenge to see if i can understand and become better at it
I have a very happy and satisfying life, so I din't really read to escape it, but it is interesting to step into minds and worlds of others through lit.
I'm also a teacher to be, so adding more knowledge for my student's benefit is always good
>Be Salman Rushdie
>Be in no Rush to die
>Publish new novel "The Satanic Verses"
>Make one joke about Khomeini on like page 300
>Khomeini gets pissed.
>Khomeini issues Fatwa
>Survive axe murderer attacking you
>Meanwhile the fucking Japanese publisher of your shit gets killed by Muslim extremists in Japan.
>Tfw when you actually live and even get to meet Thomas Pynchon
the Bible
>>8050246
elaborate. This is a thread, not a list, my /lit/tle friend.
>>8050210
>>Be Salman Rushdie
>>Be in no Rush to die
I'm currently studying mathematical logic and I'd like some recommendations on more classical logic and philosophy.
Mathematical logic is relatively new, and vastly different from its predecessors. In fact, modern logic has much more in common with math today than it does with philosophy.
Nevertheless I want to be able to understand my subject in a broader sense, so if any of you know of any books both on the history of logic and philosophy, as well as actual "textbooks" I guess you could call them, that would be appreciated.
An Introduction to Philosophical Logic: Anthony C. Grayling is decent.
>>8050188
'The Development of Logic' by William Kneale (1962)
'From Frege to Godel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 1879-1931' by Jean van Heijenoort
I've said this before and I'll say it again for those that have been seduced by ML: you'll never understand the deepest results of ML unless you're confident in your mathematical ability. This means having the knowledge of a 4-year maths education. Do you have it? If not, get it. If you do, then Schoenfield's book is the standard graduate textbook in ML.
>In fact, modern logic has much more in common with math today than it does with philosophy.
It's not a fact, unless by "fact" you mean "something that I pulled out of my ass". When you state that something has something "much more in common" with something else you need to say just what it is that they have in common and provide the statistics that justify it. It is nonsense to talk about something being "much more" than something else without defining a method for establishing this. ML lies in the foundations of mathematics and it overlaps with mathematics just as it does with philosophy.
>vastly different from its predecessors
Predecessors? *What* predecessors?
Dog ear or bookmark?
bookmark, always.
Brain mark
dog ear because I'm a madman
maybe bookmark if it's a book that's out of print
Have you ever found any good books at the thrift store? And nice hardcovers, not destroyed spines.
>>8050030
I got a nice version of the social contract in Paris in a street stand
>>8050030
Just bought a 1958 Folio Edition of the Anabasis of Alexander at a shitty roadside junk store in Brattleboro Vt on a 15 hour car ride.
Gravity's Rainbow, heavily annotated, but on closer inspection the annotations were all "haha" and "hahaha" and sometimes "HAHAHAHA," a few times a page, from beginning to end.
Let's have an actual philosophy thread.
What is /lit/'s opinion on Christopher Langan's "Cognitive Theoretic Model of Reality?" I think it's probably the most revolutionary work in philosophy of science for hundreds of years. Langan shows that reality itself is "relative" to our theories in much the same way that time is relative.
Of course it takes some intelligence to understand, so leave this thread if your IQ is below 140.
ctmu.org
Great idea. I brought joints for everybody.
I'll begin.
What is, like, the *meaning* of, like "meaning"?
>>8050019
Meaning is dependent on the mind that grasps onto any concept
Why?
Sam Harris finished it all.
Is 'start with the Greeks' just a meme? What the fuck can I hope to learn from the ideas of a defunct state that is literally older than Christ? I mean, if they're really as important as you folks claim them to be, I've already internalized the most useful parts of their philosophies from other thinkers, no?
If that's your attitude, angry lil anon, I suggest you forget Greek philosophy. Start instead with Greek literature, and come back to us when you've read some of that
>>8049999
familiarize oneself with the French.
also sick quads
>>8049999
Start with "Zorba the Greek" and work backwards.
Hey /lit/, could you recommend me some starter poetry bundles?
Also what does /lit/ think of Jim Morrison as a poet?
>>8049821
Jim Morrison loved this guy called John Green, have you heard of him anon?
DUDE ACID LMAO
Seriously though he's shit. Just another pretentious 60's psychedelic babbler with nothing of any actual substance to say. Back then all you had to do was just come off as artsy and people would think you were speaking new gospel. Go back and listen to almost anything from the late 60's and see what I mean. The whole scene was just an excuse to get high and chill with the cool kids.
>>8049821
the doors were a rad popular musical band and Jim's song lyrics are great.
song lyrics.
not poems
Just got this book. What should I expect?
>>8049763
Sadness
>>8049763
Sadness
Cripples
Whatever happened to David Foster Wallace, the meme? There once was a time /lit/'s catalog would always have threads memeing own and own about the guy and the water that this is.
Has John Green out-memed him?
>>8049704
>"own and own" instead of "on and on"
well that was retarded of me just now
>>8049704
People grew up and are now embarrassed
>>8049870
more likely they became oldfags and migrated and now all the newfags simply haven't read the books yet
Can anyone recommend me other self discipline books? I found this one on amazon for $4.50 for Kindle and am interested, but are there other books out there that you can recommend for me, /lit/?
Thank you.
Learn to meditate.
None of that dry-vipassana meme shit; look into jhana.
>>8049641
Meme suggestion.
Truth is most people work jobs that wear them down for a wage that barely affords them any meaningful pleasures. You can meditate and work out and eat as many turnips as you like, fact is you're cucked until you embrace the NEET lifestyle and become truly enlightened.
>>8049681
Please, for the love of all written words, for the sake of future minds, for the good of all memes - Would you please stop using the word "cuck" to describe fucking EVERYTHING
Disclaimer: not a native english speaker.
This may be a cheap trick, but I'm desperate.
I'm currently on creative writing course and we've gotten a short story to write (6000 letters with spaces) with inspiration title "Drowning".
Holy fuck am I stuck on ideas! All I can imagine is "drowning" in consumerism, the sobby "we're really too rich" stories or dark social realism of a family slowly losing their income and drifting into powerty. I was thinking of a character, a guy, who is drowning his traumas (yay, so inventive!) by sex, drugs, alcohol, while having a family. I was thinking of this french-like-estranged belle that sees drowning as sort of liberation, while her sorry excuse of a boyfriend crawls after her. last idea was "drowning game" for some kids that would probably end by parents "saving the day" (intervening with love).
I'm stuck as fuck, /lit/, bash me, no problem, but if anyone gives me some other aspect on Drowning, I'll be forever grateful.
>>8049491
>Holy fuck am I stuck on ideas!
>!
>(yay, so inventive!)
Don't you have a tampon to change or some of those quirky booktubers to watch?
>>8049491
just take it literally. no one else will and thus you'll do something original in contrast to the others; write 6000 letters of stream of consciousness from the perspective of a drowning person.
>>8049513
OP here.
Strong stuff, I agree.
Holy shit, you people are smart as all fuck.
How do I become smart, you fucks?
>>8049439
That seems pretty dubious, we just value intelligent discourse here. Even our shitposting is pretty verbose, and for all we joke about it, reading and immersing yourself in reading shapes the mind in ways you don't even notice.
So, read good books. They make you smarterer. If you ever lose focus or motivation, I find it immensely helpful to read up on neural pathways and picture actual literal, physical changes occurring within your brain.
>>8049439
i've seen this so many times and still nobody explains why /wg/ would be smart. ideas?
>>8049457
>Even our shitposting is pretty verbose,
Oh, I wanna see that.
>So, read good books.
I don't like reading very much. I'm just here to congratulate you guys on being smart.
Favorite book(s) of the year thus far?
How many have you read?
For me, My Antonia, Silence, and the End of the Affair were great, and The Dwarf was really fun and entertaining.
Up to 29 on the year.
Probably this, Confederacy of Dunces and Breakfast at Tiffany's.
>>8049422
Der Prozess
Nox
Jesus' Son
Petersburg
25
>>8049422
Highlights have been Anna Karenina, The Cossacks, Macbeth and vol 2 of My Struggle.
45
Any good anti-nuclear arms/anti-war/peacenik books?
>inb4 a bunch of edgy pseudoconservatives
>>8049320
Sorry, I meant non-fiction. Thanks though.
>>8049329